It's very kind of this site's hosts to leave a GNS forum in place. Thank you. Also thanks to Paul Czege for advising me that this forum is here.

No sense letting it sit empty.

Seems to me, the thing to do is provide an intro to the madness that the 3-fold model has become - a little something for people who stumble onto this topic and want to know the score.

The 3-fold concept was started by John Kim on usenet. He started with the original triad, G/S/D, Gamist, Simulationist, Dramatist. Most discussion of the 3-fold model uses his thinking as a basis. You can find his original faq and articles at this site:

And to continue the introduction to the topic, I present this idea: that G/N/S provides a foundation for discussing MORE material - in other words, it's the 101, intro-level concept that permits the "real work" of RPG play and design to occur.

One of the most frustrating elements of internet-discussion about all this is that people join the discussion and need to be brought up to speed. I'd like to suggest that this is NOT a problem - that it's OK for someone to say, "Hey, what IS all this, and why should I care?"

I'd like to avoid elitism - the notion that someone isn't good enough to join the discussion simply because they haven't been involved so far.

Of course, that means that we need OTHER threads about the more advanced levels of discussion (Stance, Setting/PC richness, D/F/K issues, Currency, and more). But it would be nice to have a basic, welcoming intro-level venue as well.

Another advantage to a newcomer showing up and asking "What's this all about?" is that it allows the group at large to sum up what has been developed so far. In some ways we are still fine-tuning some of our definitions and the opportunity to restate where we have been so far is a useful one, IMHO.

I read your article - and I think it's BRILLIANT. Very well put, in all particulars. I vastly appreciate you pointing out the range within each priority. Tiny quibbles follow.

Regarding game design, I tend to think of Tunnels & Trolls as very Gamist - lite rules, yes, but all about slaying and slaying some more, at least in the basic rules. Interestingly, some of their solo adventures are quite rousing and permit some author-input (e.g. Sea of Mystery).

This "classification" thing always puzzles me. To me, there is NO difference between saying, "this person who exhibits Gamist behavior a lot" and "this Gamist." But somehow the difference is huge and horrifying to many people. I suppose I should bow my head to the inevitable and simply start adopting the more cumbersome, yet somehow more palatable phraseology.

As for the tunnels and trolls bit - yeah, T&T is still gamist as hell, but I wanted to give some idea of game evolution. C&S wasn't especially simulationist back then either, they were both only baby stepping away from gamism.

On the issue of labelling people...people hate being labelled, and I think G/N/S serves best when it's tied more to the game than the person. I mean...I'm a narrativist most of the time, but I can sit down and munchkin out in D&D or debate obscure technical points in Blue Planet. I think most people are a bit more mobile on the Big Giant Y than you seem to think they are...